


Sehnsucht

by Unseemingowl



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: And there's angst of course, F/M, Mind Link, but the Doctor's shy, gratuitous description of a sunset, older Eleven and young River, slightly shaky negotiation of consent in the second chapter, smut is in the upcoming second chapter, the Mozart's are mentioned, there's sacher cakes, they do still get a bit frisky on this first outing though, young Eleven and older River
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-04-30 19:21:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14503788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unseemingowl/pseuds/Unseemingowl
Summary: The record spins or the singer sings and from opposite ends of the lines, the night can appear quite different.Or how a young Eleven learns about desire from River at a Viennese ball and his older self teaches his not-yet-wife about intimacy under distant skies.





	1. The Blue Danube

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, but before A Good Man Goes to War. The explicit stuff is in the next chapter
> 
> And why yes, this chapter is named after a famous song about a river. Go figure

**_Sehnsucht_ **

_\- A tender, wistful and/or melancholic desire._

 

For once the Doctor had left the brakes off.

Normally he wouldn’t bother, especially not when River Song was on board the TARDIS, but the old girl had had a rough go at it on their trip to Titan, so the Doctor was being soft with her.

He petted the console while he threw the handles, and sent her whirring through the Vortex to their destination on Earth several millennia in the past, taking comfort in the whir and vibrations of the ship under his hands. She was protesting, but not too much. He suspected it was just so he’d pet her some more. Whispering to the pulsating center of his oldest friend, the Doctor promised to give her a proper check-up when there weren’t any companions clamouring for his attention.

By the time the TARDIS was shuddering to a halt, Amy and Rory had joined him, decked out in finery matching the 1950’s Viennese alleyway outside. He grimaced as he caught sight of Amy’s voluminous skirts and Rory’s neatly combed hair.

“I meant what I said earlier, Vienna is rubbish in the 1950’s. There are so many cooler places we could go, just a flick of the wrist away,” he insisted, so far his third attempt to dissuade his companions from going along with River’s plans of partying with the Austrian aristocracy.

Just like the other two times, Amy merely rolled her eyes, and adjusted a few pins to secure the elaborate chignon she had twisted her hair into.

“We’ve never been to Vienna, and River said the party she’s taking us to is fabulous. I could do with a bit of fabulous.”

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d partied with River Song of course, but usually they were alone whenever they went out on what Amy referred to as their dates.

The thought of having Amy and Rory looking on was not exactly appealing; especially not with all the eye rolling they had shared over his and River’s banter on Titan. But that had hardly been his fault - River had been flirtatious to a fault, even when she had been knee deep in the muck of the barricades of Titan’s striking miners.

Of course that had been the part of their adventure when she had looked the most fetching to him. Dirt was oddly becoming on her. But “I can’t have you watch me doing anymore flirting with River Song” wasn’t really a valid excuse.

And it was a far too embarrassing one anyway.

“But Vienna’s boring in the 50’s,” he protested, and finally offered up the most delicious Vienna related morsel he could think of, and one that was likely to distract him more: “We should head to 18th century Vienna instead, absolutely the best time period for that city. We could go see Wolfgang and Constanze Mozart.”

“ _The_ Mozart?”

Rory paused in adjusting his bow tie in front of the reflective surfaces of the TARDIS, looking suddenly and promisingly interested.

Opening his mouth to reply, the Doctor was interrupted by an exasperated sounding River, who had finally decided to join them after spending what seemed like ages getting ready.

“Stop it, Doctor. You promised I could decide after that round of sparring I managed on Titan, and I want Otto Esterházy’s canapés.”

“Why do I feel like that’s a euphemism?” Rory muttered under his breath to Amy, who sniggered, but when River reached the bottom of the steps, the redhead rushed forward, wide-eyed.

“Oh my God, River! Look at you,” Amy cooed and circled River, who was making a few last minute adjustments to her strapless, midnight blue dress.

“Fabulous isn’t it? 1951 Dior has a way of making the best of a woman,” River preened shamelessly, running her hands over the heavy gold embroidery on her dress.

The beaded bodice of her gown bared so much of her shoulders, arms and back the Doctor had no idea how she kept it from falling off. It made her waist look impossibly small, like he might be able to span it entirely if he put his hands on it.

“You look very nice, River,” Rory said, before hurriedly kissing his suddenly frowning wife with a reassuring “You look hot though, grumpy.”

Amy wound her arms around Rory’s neck, keeping him locked to her, and River left them to their affection with a grin. Sashaying towards the Doctor instead, her heavy skirts swirled decoratively around her legs.

“Well, Doctor, will I do nicely?”

He couldn’t blame Amy for being impressed. He was impressed and he had seen River in quite a number of spectacular evening gowns by now. Of course that could just be the contrast of seeing her glammed up so thoroughly such a short time after having seen her dirty and bloodied and holding up an entire gang of mining executives on Titan.

He wasn’t quite sure which version of her he preferred.

Rather than dwelling on his odd affection for a violent River, of which the less said, the better, he reached out to tug on the soft velvet bow tied around her bust.

”I like the bow bit,” the Doctor said, words coming out in a rush. 

It wasn’t until he saw the cheeky kink in River’s brow that he realised just how suggestive that tug had the potential to be. And as always with anything involving a suggestive River, he felt the blushing coming on.

”Yes, you would, wouldn’t you,” she grinned and batted his hand away as she pulled on a pair of long opera gloves.

From the way she was looking at him, he got the feeling that he would be most welcome to untie that pretty bow and the rest of her dress later in the evening if he was so inclined.

The night was shaping up to be far too stressful. Perhaps if he kicked the toggle under the console, he might be able to fake an emergency with the old girl.

”Oi, Raggedy man!”

He staggered and spluttered as a satin glove smelling of Amy’s perfume hit him straight in the face.

”If you’ve finished staring at River’s boobs, can we go? We just helped to resolve the biggest labour strike in our solar system’s history, I’m entitled to a drink.”

Neither of them apparently expected an answer, because his two companions as well as River grinned at him – in variations on knowing and naughty – before heading towards the door.

”Wasn’t staring,” he muttered defensively under his breath.

”Sure you weren’t Doctor,” Rory snarked, sounding way too pleased with himself.

Muttering some more, this time about the ungratefulness of human companions, he put on the white suit jacket to complete his own era appropriate look and followed them out into the square.

The light from the sunset caught through the spring fresh leaves on the trees and bathed the cream coloured mansions and marble arches in pale pinks and russet hues. Grabbing a hold of Rory, Amy let out a little, overjoyed noise at the romance of the image.

It wasn’t that the Doctor didn’t like Vienna. Especially when the sunlight sunk into River’s honey coloured hair the way it did in that moment. As earth-cities went it was pleasant enough, but in the early nineteen fifties, it had become so very proper, and didn’t really loose that unappealing character trait again until the eighties.

The Doctor preferred it when it was grimier and bawdier and Wolfgang and Constanze were still giving parties.

He sighed inwardly. Had they gone to Wolfie’s instead, the composer would only have been too happy to monopolise his attention, and would have served as a welcome distraction from River’s charms. Although, he remembered with a frown, the next time he went to see them, he would have to remember to arrive a bit later than the last time, when Wolfie was less cross about the whole calf-measuring business.

The party they had arrived at was fancy enough, but there were no drunk giraffes or even a jaunty reel on the dance floor. The couples were waltzing instead and looking far too well behaved in their evening gowns.

“It looks boring,” he complained.

“Oh shut up, Doctor. There are free champagne and pretty clothes. And we’ve at least got to show River off when she’s wearing that dress,” Amy said, as she plucked a glass of champagne from the passing waiter.

“It’s not boring, Doctor. It’s classy, big difference,” Rory explained with a roll of his eyes, following his wife’s example.

The both of them looked more than pleased at the scenery, and the Doctor was half tempted to accuse them of hypocrisy considering where they had just come from, but before he could reply, River slipped her arm through his; gloved fingers determined, and dragged him towards the other end of the room.

“Come on, sweetie, let’s see if we can find you a lemon cordial or something to cheer you up.”

There weren’t any lemon cordial, however there were several Sachertortes on the table with perfectly gleaming icing. Which was almost as good.

Amongst the crush of the partygoers he and River were forced close together. Her skirts rustled against his legs, and her hand on his arm was warm, even through her glove and his dinner jacket.

She was also being remarkably patient with him as he recounted his cooking lessons with Franz Sacher himself, detailing the necessity of the right temperature of the chocolate. He could feel her gaze on him, and though he did his best not to return it, out of the corner of his eye he could see that the expression on her face was both fond and naughty

With that smirk tugging at her mouth, the Doctor was half surprised that she hadn’t already interrupted him with some indecent suggestion what chocolate could also be used for. Such suggestions had become more frequent lately when they were brought together.

Of course not looking at River made him aware of other stares from the other guests. Some scandalised, some amused. Both variants mostly coming from women who looked about the same age as River.

He brushed his face, half convinced he had cake smeared about his mouth, but his fingers came back clean.

“Why are they staring at us?” he asked round a mouthful of cake.

“Well, Sweetie,” the hand on his arm moved up to tweak his bowtie. “To everyone watching, I look like a bit of a cougar who’s dragged her pretty boy toy to a party to show him of.”

“Boy to… River!”

She chortled at his outrage, a wicked glint in her eyes when she took another sip of champagne.

“That’s ridiculous. I’m far older than you,” he insisted; blush high in his cheeks and nearly bit off his tongue to stop himself from saying that she was much prettier than him anyways.

And that last bit was saying something, because he was very pretty this go round. Chin was a bit massive though.

“And you know this how exactly?”

“Well, I…” he trailed of, watching her arched brows and sphinx-smirk with sudden hesitation.

“Surely you can’t be.”

“There are so many things you don’t know about me yet.”

And wasn’t that the truth. For all that she had travelled with him and Rory and Amy several times now, his knowledge of her was still frustratingly limited. In some ways she felt a little like Jack Harkness, someone who had no business having that many timelines swirling about them. But where Jack felt wrong, like a loose tooth in the mouth of the universe, the _potential-ness_ coming off River was intoxicating and terrifying all at once. Like drinking scorpicore vodka with Vorkonnian mercenaries. 

The smell of time about her was what kept him coming back for more even though he knew it would be safer if he ran in the opposite direction of her. Away from the sight of her roasting out of existence under a crown of light.

These days though, he was becoming very good at ignoring that particular memory and instead focusing on the few things he knew. That she was clever and funny and a crack shot with a blaster. That she kissed him like she loved him. 

The Doctor’s gaze dropped to her mouth for a split second, and braced against the fidgeting that immediately sparked in him. It still made him feel vaguely embarrassed to think of his wildly flailing arms when she had kissed him after their trip to 1969.

But he wasn’t quite sure whether the embarrassment came for his lack of finesse – sandshoes had certainly never had the kind of inhibitions that he did now – or the unexpected rush of excitement it had produced.

He opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say – he still wasn’t too sure what that was – was interrupted by the host of their party.

“Ladies and gentlemen. It’s my great honor to tell you that we have the famous Elisabeth Schwarzkopf present tonight, and she has agreed to sing for us.”

River shot a quick glance at him as an elegant blonde woman in a turquoise dress walked onto the raised dias in the room’s far corner. The expression on her face had changed completely. No longer fond, but disgruntled more than anything.    

“Not an opera fan, River?” He quizzed as she clapped.

“I am actually, why?” Focused on the singer and her pianist, she had somehow managed to pale and flush all at the same time.

“Thought you’d be a bit more eclectic since you’ve been around.”

“Elisabeth Schwarzkopf’s one of the best sopranos of the twentieth century,” she said in way of an answer.

And she certainly had something. The Doctor had heard singers of all kinds from all over the universe – he had even managed to hear concerts with the singer of Preklos. They had two sets of vocal chords and were considered the best vocalists in the entire Andromeda Galaxy, but Elisabeth Schwartzkopf sure knew how to sing the pants off of Strauss’ lieders.

She wasn’t quite good enough to distract him from the soft curve of River’s bare shoulders though.

He wasn’t too fond of the era appropriate updo she had schooled her hair into, much preferring it all space frizzy. However swept up like that, he could see the downy curls at the nape of her neck, too small to be styled, and the Doctor’s fingers itched with the sudden urge to touch them.

Rather than doing so, he clenched his fingers harder around his cake plate, and swallowed down his impulses until he choked on them. 

This urge to touch her all the time was alarming. Although he felt physical desire every once in a while, when it came to the marvel of bodies, the sexually gratifying parts of them were usually the last thing he thought of.

But this time round his physiology was so quiet, more so than usual, and it had taken him a while to realise that was what he was feeling when he looked at River. Not that it had been a help. IT only made his attraction to her that much harder to get a handle on. Especially when it sprung up like this, inopportunely and without warning, even if they hadn’t kissed since that awkward time in front of her cell.

He tried to concentrate on Elisabeth Schwartzkopf to distract himself. Mozart joined Strauss in the singer’s repertoire, and the Doctor smiled as he recognised them – he had seen them at their original performances. He spotted Amy and Rory cosying up to one another on the other side of the room as they listened – attention rapt like the rest of the partygoers.

The fourth song though, wasn’t one he knew. The gentle lull of the piano and the mournful lyrics were pretty though, and tugged on something soft inside him.

“What was that song?” he whispered, leaning closer to River’s ear, catching a whiff of the jasmine perfume on her skin as the piece ended and applause filled the ballroom.  

“None but the Lonely Heart,” River whispered back, and the Doctor started, nearly dropping his cake plate as he saw tears on her face.

“River, you’re crying,” he blurted out without thinking, Probably a bit too loudly judging from the stares they were getting.

“So I am,” her voice was light, but he caught the sadness, and there was so much of it, in her eyes, before she blinked away the tears.

When she turned towards him as the recital ended, her smile was back in place and only a slight smudge to her mascara betrayed her agitation from just a second earlier.

“Let’s dance, Sweetie.”

He was too startled by the sudden shift in her mood to protest when she dragged him onto the dance floor, now filling again as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf had left the stage and the band began playing again. He didn’t even fidget when River brought his hand back to curl around her bare shoulder, and pulled him into a waltz matching the strains of An Der Schönen Blauen Donau.

She smiled, but it was frozen on her face, and the wing of her shoulder blade seemed fragile like bird bones under his hand. He had gotten used to flirty and outrageous River – had even started trying going toe-to-toe with her, but brittle and crying River was something new. He hadn’t met her since the library, when he had barely known anything about her other than her name.

Despite his best efforts he couldn’t get her back to the cheeky mood she had been in earlier. There was a distance in her manner now, for all that she bantered along with him easily enough and sidestepped the fumblings of his footwork like she had been doing it forever. But perhaps she had.

Perhaps she had been waltzing around him for centuries, anticipating his missteps before he'd even made them. 

When Amy and Rory found them a little later, intoxicated and giggling and obviously having been out doing _something_ from the way that their clothes were askew, the tension finally seeped out of River’s shoulders.

“Looks like someone were having a good night,” River trilled, raising an eyebrow at the twisted bra strap that peeked out of Amy’s neckline.

Amy, as usual, didn’t bother to look embarrassed, but then she never really had to when Rory was so quick to make up for that with both blushing and stuttering. He was the one to push Amy’s purple bra strap out of sight again to the Doctor’s great relief.

“I’m hungry,” Amy declared, unbothered by Rory’s manhandling. “Can we go eat something more substantial than canapés?”

“Please,” River agreed, untangling herself from the Doctor. “I know a little Hungarian place that sells the most marvellous goulash. Shouldn’t be more than a few blocks away.”

Spring was in the air as they spilled out of the Esterházy mansion, leaving the glitz of the Austrian aristocracy behind. It was still nippy though – he could see a shiver go through River’s bare shoulders – and stepped in to help her with her white, fluffy fur stole, ignoring the knowing glances he saw Amy and Rory sharing.

River took his arm as she guided them away from the fashionable town house and brought them to a more modest street where coloured lanterns and bawdy voices filled the darkness. The Hungarian restaurant she had mentioned was well visited, and warm and friendly for all that they stood out like four sore thumbs in their finery.

He was persuaded to try some of the local beer by the other three as they waited for the goulash to arrive – bitter and terrible – he coughed, only to realise that they’d made him try it to laugh at him. He didn’t mind so much when River’s warm thigh pressed against his, while she entertained Rory and Amy with a story of how she’d once held up Billy the Kid in a brothel with only a garter belt and a letter opener.

Back to her old tricks and no sign of her distress from earlier.

“Charming boy, terrible teeth though and not very impressive without his clothes on”

“I hate to think how you’d summarise us,” Amy said half grinning, half wincing.

“Oh, you two don’t have to worry. I’d be more nervous if I were him,” she looked up at the Doctor, eyes twinkling.

“Oi, I’m delightful!”

“You are,” River purred, before a sharp kink in her brow turned her expression menacing, and she jabbed a finger at his ribs.

He had to clap a hand over his mouth to contain the buzz of his undignified giggles as he squirmed away from her in the booth. Amy and Rory had no such problem, laughing openly as River chased after him to the other end of the booth, stopping just in time to save him from taking a tumble onto the floor.

“You’re also so full of yourself, it’s a wonder you still got both feet on the ground,” River huffed. 

Her cheeks were flushed with exertion and eyes full of mischief – and there it was again. That terrified – _human_ \- drop in his stomach that intensified as his gaze flickered to her lips for a split second.

Thankfully, adding strong, Austrian beer to the champagne had gotten Amy more than a little rowdy, and her starting up some outrageous flirtation with the workmen in the booth next to them distracted all of them. Before the Doctor could do something stupid.

After that Rory was thankful for getting a bit assistance in escorting his wife back to the TARDIS, the Doctor hanging back a bit to avoid hearing the finer details of Amy flirting even more outrageously with her husband.

“You go on ahead, we’ll be right in,” River called through the doors and the Doctor blushed as he heard Amy’s loud and bawdy suggestions as to what they should do with their time before River shut the door.

He was vaguely aware that River was speaking to him - “strange activity by the sewer grate. You want to go see which kind, give them a scolding if they’re not supposed to be here?” – but the Doctor’s attention was once again caught by the curls at the base of her neck, glossy like silk under the warm light of the street lamp.

River’s voice died out when he at long last gave into the urge to touch them. She twitched under the touch and with so much of her back bare he could see how it travelled through her, muscles tensing and relaxing. Bodies trulywere marvellous. He itched to press his face against the soft looking skin between her shoulder blades.

Instead of jerking away as he had half expected, half hoped she would when he touched her, River turned towards him, slowly, giving him time to adjust his grip on her neck rather than letting his fingers drop.

As his thumb pressed against the pulse in her neck, she twitched again, and this time the movement made her breasts heave.

He swallowed thickly, feeling the throb of his pulse in his throat match hers. The tilt in their time streams was palpable as his fingers stroked over her soft skin.

“Doctor?” Her voice was barely more than an erotic sigh.

Right then.

Licking his lips he bent down towards her. Geronimo.

She didn’t make a grab for him like last time as their lips met, for which he was thankful, but at the first press of his mouth against her, she practically melted against him. While it wasn’t aggressive like the grabbing, it startled him just the same and forced him to slip an arm around her waist before they both lost their balance, the beading on her dress rasping against his shirt.

Kissing her the first time had felt nice, even if he had been embarrassed. Kissing her now didn’t feel nice. It felt practically obscene and entirely undignified. The way she was sucking on his lower lip with a faint nip of teeth had him making the most awkward noises, and the touch of her hands as they ran up and down his spine made his entire body vibrate with excitement.

”River?” he wasn’t quite what he was asking as they broke apart, but he could hear the question in his own voice all the same.

”Later, sweetie. First kiss me again.”

By now it was his worst kept secret that he enjoyed that nickname immensely, but said like that, breathy and eager, it sounded even better.

She tasted like hops and paprika and the Doctor could almost feel the fizz of delighted laughter on her tongue too as he backed her up against the TARDIS. His unsteady movements caused them both to stagger, and the giggles spilled out of her like music when that snapped their lips apart.

He swallowed them again immediately and pulled at her hair, changing the buzz of her laughter to an eager whimper. She returned the favour by grabbing a hold of his neck, angling his mouth to hers in a thrillingly authoritative fashion.

The volume in her dress was absurd, the entire confection of silk and pearls and petticoats rustling as they wound up tighter in each other, but he could still feel the strong shape of her thigh through it when she pressed it against his crotch. This time it was the Doctor’s turn to break away, moaning raggedly as he was made suddenly and embarrassingly aware that he was hard.

It had been a long time since that had happened with another person – the last time he’d had even a stir in that department had been when she’d kissed him in front of her cell door, and sent him scrambling away, blushing like naughty school boy at the unwelcome prospect of wanting again.

The embarrassment of it all made him seek the shelter of the warm curve of her neck, catching the smell of gunpowder and jasmine in her hair.

And oh, she practically reeked of the vortex – the collapse of stars and the birth of a million fresh cells – and the Doctor groaned into her soft flesh.

For a second, the Doctor felt like he was dangling on the edge of understanding something important as he kissed the taste of starlight and time off of her skin, but then River shifted. As she distracted him with the press of her hips, he shuddered away from the threshold of revelation, focusing instead of travelling back to her mouth.

Dipping his head again, the Doctor tried to calm down and be sweet about the kissing, but as soon as River’s fingers dug into his shoulders, that went out the window. His spine felt liquid with the roll of feeling going through him. Manhandling her up against the TARDIS with shaking hands, he stumbled a leg between hers only to nearly have them give out, when she took the opportunity to thrust down in a search for friction, moaning low in her throat.

He froze, as did River as soon as she realised he wasn’t participating anymore. Heavens, he _wanted_. No, he wanted _her_. How had that happened? He had been supposed to run away from her.

“Too much?” Her voice was very gentle.

“I’m sorry, I’m just…” he muttered against her cheek, his entire body trembling like live wire, but River smiled softly when she pulled back even though her eyes were full of disappointment.

Cupping his face in her warm hands, River fluttered her lips over the sharp curve of his cheekbone, the shell of his ear and the ridge of his nose. He closed his eyes so she could brush a kiss there too.

“Not in a rush, Sweetie,” River whispered before her lips planted a soft kiss in the corner of his mouth.

Somehow her gentility managed to calm him down and key him up all at the same time, and when she took a step back, he clutched at her, not quite willing to let go yet.

River let him haul her back in, and put her arms around him. He jerked slightly at that, squishing his nose into her hair, but she made no comment to tease him about the obvious erection poking at her belly. Rather than that, she started swaying from side to side - barely dancing to a tune she was humming so softly it was hardly more than a vibration through her chest.

“I like that song,” he muttered against her temple when he finally managed to pick out the melody, although River, for all her talents, definitely wasn’t a match for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

“I thought you might.”

There was something strange about her voice as she said it, but before he could open his mouth to question it, River nuzzled deeper into his embrace and nearly made him go cross eyed with the soft pressure that put on his pelvis.

“So this is something we do together?” he finally managed, asking the question that had been nagging at him since 1969.

“What? Dancing?”

“Intimacy. Sex,” he grumbled, feeling himself blush once more, and wondered vaguely if that was just how it was going to be now, blushing as soon as they were alone together. “We have sex,” he said a little firmer, no longer really a question.

“That isn’t a dirty word, Doctor. I’ve got much more inventive phrases if you want to spruce up your vocabulary,” her lips were swollen and red when she looked up at him, eyes laughing, and he kissed her again, interrupting her before she could finish “How about fu…” 

It was even better this time – they were synched up– mouths angled properly, tongues moving in tandem. His entire body was buzzing with the feel of her when he pulled away, her breathing ragged on his face.

“This is very nice, River. Kissing you, I mean, and I can’t seem to stop wanting to kiss you,” he said, wincing at the admission.

“But I’m… What I mean to say is… It’s not that I don’t…”

His rambling were interspaced with more kisses, these barely a flutter of her lips against his in a way that made him lean into it in a desperately search for more pressure, more tongue, more of everything until she stopped him, fingers soft against his mouth, as she shook her head.

“It’s an open offer, Doctor, no demands or expectations attached.”

His hands slipped around her waist, testing his earlier theory he could reach around her – almost, but not quite.

“Well all right, maybe a bit of hope,” she confessed, sounding just as exasperated as he had, though not nearly as embarrassed.

For all that she was trying not to give any ready answers and be coy about it, it was obvious that they were lovers in her time stream. Actual proper lovers who kissed and saw each other naked on a regular or at least semi regular basis. He wasn’t an idiot after all, despite all the evidence that seemed to point to the contrary when it came to River Song, and she had always had a way of smiling at him like she knew the look and feel of his naked bottom.

Looking at her now, when the street light had softened the shape of her face and her curls so that she looked like a Renaissance painting, the idea still seemed alarming. However, it didn’t seem nearly as terrifying as it had done at the start of the night.

“So, this sign of strange sewer activity you mentioned, where did you spot it?”

Warned as he was, he caught the disappointment in her eyes, but a trooper as usual, River steeled her shoulders, and folded up her fur stole rather than say anything barbed.  

“If we’re chasing aliens, I’m going to change.”

“Why? You’re usually less fussy about clothing.”

“Well, most of my clothes haven’t been made for me specifically by Christian Dior either.”

“An old boyfriend of yours?” The mild stab of jealousy was unfamiliar and took him by surprise, and from the way River’s eyes narrowed, she had heard it too.

“Hardly. I lack a certain kind of appendage that he was very fond of.”

“Appendage?”

She raised her brows, but it was another long, agonising moment before he clocked on.

“Oh right. I see. Well I don’t mind you don’t have that,” he said and then realised that implied something was going to happen between them.

Another kiss, just for good measure, to see if it felt the same. Better still. Wet and wanting and crackling with a potential of timelines shifting if he followed her inside. Suddenly, he frowned, remembering something.

“Wouldn’t mind it if you had one either, though,” River rolled her eyes in reply and leaned in to bite at his jaw in a way that made his entire body feel so electric he could barely focus to clarify further: “I mean, I don’t discriminate.”

“Good to know,” she pushed the door open with a flourish and headed inside, obviously laughing at him as she did. “Though you’re welcome to come and play doctor if you want to. See if my existing appendages are in working order.”

“What do you mean, playing doctor, River?” he quizzed as he ducked in after her despite his misgivings and the unspooling and respooling of time he felt as he did.

“I don’t need to play doctor. I am a Doctor.”

“I know that, Sweetie.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song that Elisabeth Schwarzkopf is singing is  this one  – it shows up in the next instalment too, so give it a whirl.
> 
> The calf measuring detail about Constanze and Wolfgang Mozart is based on an allegedly true disagreement during their courtship, and I find it delightful, so I wanted to include it. 
> 
> Also on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/unseemingowl). Feel free to come and say hi :)


	2. None But the Lonely Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's the second chapter, this time from a young River's point of view. Timeline is a bit more fuzzy this time around, but sometime after River's started Luna University.
> 
> It's already in the tags, but just to be safe I'll say that there are some vaguely shaky consent negotiations in this chapter

**_Sehnsucht_ **

_\- A tender, wistful and/or melancholic desire._

River Song didn’t do nervous and she didn’t do waiting.

And yet, on this particular occasion, she nevertheless found herself doing both, leg jittering as she glared at the unmoving and yet somehow still disapproving portraits in the professors’ hallway. Centuries of lunar university legacy passing judgement.

There was still no life sign from the other side of the door – the only noise in the entire hallway was the sound of her teeth snapping together in time with the tic of the clock – and River knew perfectly well that she was being made to wait to teach her a lesson.

Resentment tasted a lot bitterer than she remembered, tasted different in River Song’s mouth than it did in Mels Zucker’s too.

“Miss Song.”

She was all by vibrating out of her skin, when the professor finally opened his door, his tactics obviously having worked for all that she had figured them out.

“Professor Opphid,” she said, taking his cue to be formal rather than call him Earl, as she normally would.

Usually the professor, who was so old and wrinkly he reminded her vaguely of a tortoise, was all fondness when he looked at her. He had been her first champion when she dropped into the university with the whacky plan of specialising in the long dead and notoriously secretive civilisation of the Time Lords. When she spent time in his office it was with tea and biscuits and making him laugh himself silly. This time however, he looked frustrated more than anything as he harrumphed about the office, only succeeding in making him ever more tortoisy.

“I’m sure you’re aware of why you’re here,” he said when he finally sat down, motioning for her to join him in the chair on the opposite side of the desk.

“I have some idea,” River admitted, forcing her legs to stop their jittering.

“I’ve been in conference all morning, professor Eustat wants you dismissed.”

“I bet he does,” River scoffed, neither able nor willing to keep up the humble act at the mention of the other professor’s name.

“You interrupted and humiliated a respected professor, an icon of this institution at his own jubilee address.”

“He’s a moron, you know that.”

“You called him a pudding brained cu…” he suddenly interrupted himself. “River,” her eyes narrowed at his resumed familiarity, but his face fell, making him look unmoored more than anything.

Against her will, River felt herself soften - with his balding head and his puzzled frown he reminded her far too much of another old man who’d once been kind to her.

“He a gross apologist that argues that there is no evidence supporting the use of child soldiers within the church."

“And if you disagree, you argue your counterpoint in a paper, like all academics. You don’t call him names in front of an auditorium of his peers.”

“Academic papers are just name-calling with better grammar,” River snapped back.

His lips twitched, but only for a split second, seriousness descending on his face once again.

“River, you are the best student I’ve ever had. Please don’t let your pride get in the way of you flourishing here.”

She could already feel where it was going, the tenderness from before gone again. The hair at the back of her neck prickled when she suddenly realised he didn’t have her back. Her mistake. She should have known better than to put her trust in a weak, old man.

“I see. He wants an apology then, does he?”

He winced, obviously catching the note of betrayal in her tone.

“A written one, published, and one in person too.”

River inhaled sharply, and was halfway out of her chair before the professor stopped her with a soft exclamation of her name.

“You can write a paper afterwards to denounce his conclusions. I’ll help you River.”

“It’s not about the bloody paper, Earl.” River snapped and stood up properly.

His legs were far too stiff to get up as quickly, and she left him calling out protestations from behind his desk as she flung the door open and stalked out of the office.

Her hands were shaking as she hastened through the corridor under the stern faced portraits of the previous professors. There was no way to explain to professor Opphid how she knew for a fact – intimately – that professor Eustat’s research weren’t just tone deaf, but vicious.

The body she now inhabited might not have felt the physical effects of her years spent under the church’s control, but that didn’t stop it from remembering them. Her nightmares were of the kind that reanimated the ghosts of old pains, the burning lungs from the water conditioning of her childhood, scars no longer there still aching when she woke up.

River clenched her hands against her rage, nails digging into her palms. She had run from one rigid system right into the arms of another one ruled by different, but just as arbitrary laws of conduct and criminality.

The irony of it was not lost on her.

As soon as she burst through the doors from the main building and caught sight of the atmospheric dome crackling above the colony, she was ready to punch something. The electricity of it – imperceptible to most humanoids – weighed on her head, and settled like an ache in her lungs. She had never liked staying put in the same place for long, but Luna had been her choice – for the first time though, it felt like a prison.

By the time she was running down the steps and hastening across the University Green, River was already working over where she had left her Vortex Manipulator the last time. Usually she would leave it with her spare blaster and knife collection, but she had been rather drunk the last time it was used, and she had a feeling she might not have been quite as strict with the security measures as she should have been.

Going to her parents were out of the question. At least in the mood she was in now. It was still too hard for them to wrap their heads around the thought of a daughter who knew 16 ways of killing people with a stapler. And she was in half mind trying to come up with at least 10 more before the day was over.

That thought had barely formed in her head before a hum interrupted it. Something surging and familiar that made the ache in her shoulders settle a little. When the Doctor’s blue box materialised, it was so close that she all but smacked right into it.  

The Doctor that came with it was the floppy haired menace, she was the most familiar with, purple great coat whirling about him as he came tumbling out.

As soon as he caught sight of her, punch drunk and petting the TARDIS, his face lit up in a wide grin, and River’s desire for violence careened sharply, turning into something else altogether. She was on him before she even realised that she’d moved, hands in his hair and mouth firmly on his.

River had to restrain herself from rubbing against him like an eager cat, instead letting her kisses speak for her, one after the other, until she was one big, flushing, gasping mess.

“Hello there, Song,” he panted against her mouth when she finally let up enough for him to speak, and River noticed with relish that his hands had taken up residence on her hips where her top rode up, fingers stroking over the bared skin.

Usually it took more coaxing before he got that touchy.

“Here to take me away, Doctor?”

“Of course, if you got any plans, cancel them. Mine are much better.”

He chucked her chin up to look her in the eye and immediately his grin faltered for a frown.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter, sweetie.”

“But you look…?”

He faltered for a moment, and River took the opportunity to steer the conversation in a more manageable direction.

“The next word out of your mouth better be gorgeous or fantastic or some variation on that,” she quipped as she pushed the door to the TARDIS open, enjoying the welcoming hum in the wood beneath her fingers.

“Hello there, old girl. Did you miss me?”

The hum rose in volume, until the air was warm and all but vibrating around her.

”She always misses you.”

The Doctor’s hands were warm and heavy on her shoulders as he steered her further into the console room,

”Good that someone does.”

And that was really far too pointed for the easy breezy affect that she had been putting on, and before risking more prying, River spun around, kissing him once again. He seemed to have no complaints, staggering a bit before he slipped his arm around her, cinching her to him.

”You know, I do a marvellous scolding, I bet I could make quick work of whoever put that look in your eye.”

The words were half muffled by her lips as he hadn’t strictly finished snogging her before he started speaking. River grimaced, the wag of his tongue in her mouth wasn’t nearly as welcome when he wasn’t kissing her.

”I can do my own scolding, sweetie,” she insisted, leaning back form his mouth to stare up at him.

”Yes, but you usually do it with guns,” his grip in her hair prevented her from moving further away, forced her to look him in the eye.

”Sweetie, come off it, or I won’t shag you this time around.”

That did the trick. As had been the intension, he relaxed his grip as he started and flushed. For all her familiarity with his quirks, River wasn’t delusional enough to claim to truly know the Doctor, but in this at least he was predictable – looking positively offended as he glared at her.

”I can go without that just fine, you know. Wouldn’t be the first time, I’ve gone centuries without it before.”

As if she didn’t know that. As a species the Time Lords had quiet physiologies by nature, but that was one aspect that hadn’t been included in the package River’s plus some DNA. She had spent many of their first outings in a state of frustration until she had figured out which buttons to push to lure him out of his clothes and drop his misgivings of her being too young.

These days sex between them still only happened on her initiative, although he had no problem partaking once she got them going. And it was as effective a way of shutting up his preaching or his more annoying eccentricities as she knew – shoving him down onto the nearest horizontal surface and fucking the fight out of him.

”But that was before I came along, sweetie." 

There was a twitch in his face, the ridge of his brow softening a little into an expression she had never seen on him before. One that made her swallow thickly, and when he reached out to grip her hair again, it was just a gentle tug on her curls.

”You never change, do you, River.”

”Well, I’d better change my clothes. I have a feeling this isn’t appropriate for whatever outing you’ve got planned for us,” she said, not quite sure what to make of the silly look on his face, but rather than allow it to disarm her any further, she squirmed away from him.

To her surprise he followed her to the dressing room, though warily as far as she could tell from his footsteps.

”So where are you taking me this time?” River asked as she bypassed feather boas and leather pants to run her fingers over lush velvet and rich silks. 

”I thought we might go to Beatrix 12.” 

She had never heard of the place and told him as much.

”Earth colony, founded in the 47th century. Maddest sunsets you’re ever gonna see. Six in a row.”

”So more exploring than dancing, right?”

”You usually make it work either way, I’ve seen you swinging from the rafters in a ball gown once or twice,” his tone was flippant, but imbued with the kind of exasperated awe that she had learned to pinpoint when he spoke of her more audacious episodes.

”That’s spoilers, isn’t it?”

”You tell me?”

She didn’t, wriggling out of her clothes to distract him instead. They should have done diaries by now, but she liked to delay it every once in a while, to see if she could make him give away anything. Not something dangerous or derailing of course, but something thrilling or saucy. It was the most fun when he revealed something to embarrass himself.

River could feel him staring, the intensity of it felt like a buzz of electricity against her skin, but she resisted the temptation to react. Of course deliberately ignoring her environment wasn’t a great idea – when she pulled her shirt over her head, he was suddenly standing right behind her, mouth opening with questions.

”River, what…”

She had to swallow down the urge to strike him – an assassin’s reflexes didn’t just disappear, and River was still adjusting to the whole not punching people when they startled her-part of life. Instead she channelled the smack of adrenaline in a different direction and pulled him down. The Doctor squeaked when he suddenly found himself plastered to her, but then she felt him shrug, and River smiled into the kiss as she realised she had made a liar of him.

Perfectly able to do without touching her, indeed.

His hands made quick work of her panties, the last bit of clothing she was wearing safe for her socks, and then gracelessly dipped his fingers between her legs.

“River,” her name was more like a punched out moan as he teased her open to find her already wet and more than ready to barrel ahead.

“You better not make me wait,” she said, halfway between amusement and a threat to avoid confessing she’d been humming with the urge to fuck him as soon as he’d stepped out onto the green.

He held enough of the power in their encounters as it was already.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen until after dinner at least,” he complained, and then completely ruined the effect of his protest by pressing his fingers against her clit.

“Yeah, well, the promise of time travel makes a girl horny,” River quipped breathlessly as she pulled his hand away, and manoeuvred him onto the floor with only a modicum of flail from him.

“It does?”

His fingers were in her hair as soon as she crawled on top of him, complicating her progress with the kisses he pressed against the curve of her ear and the line of her throat. 

“Well, probably that’s just me, so no naughty thoughts about your companions, you dirty old man,” River said and finally succeeded in wriggling his trousers down around his thighs, and lined them up.

“Oi, I wasn’t…” any further protest was cut of when she dropped her hips and took him inside.

For a second she remained where she was, relishing the feel of it. Being full of him, the way his hands were suddenly clawing in her hair and on her hip, a choked off grunt in his mouth.

At first everything happened as it usually did. The Doctor flat on his back beneath her, face flushed and lips parted wantonly as she fucked herself onto his cock, the chafe of the carpet sending a rush of pain up her knees. In a way it was almost comical - her stark naked while he was still wearing his suit, tweed scratching against the inside of her thighs, buttons clicking against her nails as River fisted his shirt in her hands.

And then he sat up.

His arms were suddenly like vices around her, crushing her to him as he swallowed her moans with his mouth and his hips bucked up into hers so forcefully that it took her completely aback.

He was always so careful with her, even when he was at his most disapproving or when she raked teeth and nails over his skin to urge him faster and harder. Now that gentility was nowhere to be found as he rolled them over, knocking the breath from her lungs and thrusting into her so hard and deep that she came almost instantly.

River did the best she could to hang on, bucking back into his thrusts that didn’t once let up as he babbled nonsense into her hair. She was too focused to speak, reedy, embarrassing whimpers leaving her as his pelvis rocked into her clit each time her bottomed out in her.

When his teeth clamped down on her shoulder it was startling enough, but what followed was even more so. Blind and dumb from lust, she didn’t realise what the pressure in her head was before he was suddenly inside her thoughts.

The shock of it made her entire body seize, her cunt clenching around his cock so hard that she went off again, screaming to the high heavens. The Doctor followed, grunting helplessly into her neck. She was still squeezing around him when she ejected him from her mind as forcefully as she could and the Doctor immediately lifted his head.

Despite barely done coming inside her and looking completely gobsmacked at the intensity of it, she caught a look of horror on his face the split second before she slapped him as hard as she could.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry River,” he keened and scrabbled back, tucking himself back into his trousers as he did. “I misjudged where we were.”

“Get out,” she snapped and the Doctor didn’t have to be told twice, immediately leaving the dressing room on unsteady legs as River flopped back onto the floor, trying to process what had just happened as the residual shock faded from her limbs.

It hadn’t hurt, but the sense of intrusion remained as the cold sweat prickled on her neck and cheeks.

In theory she had known about mind links, but she had never tried one herself. Had always shied away from the very idea of one. Too many parts of her had been violated during her conditioning. Her mind had been the one thing that hadn’t, but it had still put enough ghouls and ghosts in there that she wasn’t willing to inflict on anyone.

She had thought – no assumed – that he would be the same given how secretive he always was. 

Of course in the abstract River knew that her relationship with the Doctor was much deeper in the future. It was evident in the way that he touched her and the way she sometimes caught him staring at her. Like she was precious bit of technology missing a vital upgrade.

And letting him into her mind – his reaction had seemed to indicate it was common practise – was just about as intimate as it got. But it hadn’t felt like it. Sitting there with the Doctor’s cum drying on her thighs, she couldn’t shake the feeling of having been tricked somehow.

But if she left now, who knew when she would see him again. His presence in her life was shaky enough as it was. When he had pulled out of her he had looked guilty enough to leave her behind on Luna for months if not years.

She winced at that last thought. When had she become so dependent on him that the thought of being apart from him that long could elicit that kind of terror in her? But rather than pick anymore at that mental scab, River got to her feet and cleaned herself up before heading out to look for him.

He was pacing around the console when she made it back to him, and looked relieved to see her.

“I shouldn’t have done that River. That was stupid. Do you want to leave? I can get you back to Luna,” he said in a rush as soon as the stepped into the room with him, but she shook her head in response.

“I don’t really want to talk about it. Let’s just head out to Beatrix 12.” 

When he reached out to touch her, she flinched away and almost regretted it when she caught the devastated look on his face. However, he didn’t protest, just swallowed thickly and then turned towards the controls of the TARDIS, sending them whirling into the vortex. 

River kept her eyes firmly averted until they landed, ignoring the feeling of him staring at her as the TARDIS pulsed and groaned around them.

“So, we should have about two hours before sunset. Gives us enough time to head to the best vantage point.”

The chipper in his voice was forced and the usual spring in his step wasn’t exactly there, but River felt the tension in her shoulders drain, relieved he too was willing to pretend. 

“And you didn’t just want to bring us straight there?”

“And miss all the ambiance. Not a chance, Song.”

“Yeah, sure is a lot of that,” she drawled as they stepped outside.

The city they’d landed in was a ruin. Shattered windows like broken teeth in the houses that nestled in the lush forest valley. Pretty once upon a time probably, before the rot and the rust had set in and the trees had reclaimed it.

“I seem to have missed with about a century or so,” he admitted.

“See, this is why you should let me drive,” she quipped, suppressing a wince at the sound of her own voice – definitely overplaying her flippancy a little.

But when she looked up, he wasn’t playing along. At least not right away. His face was pale and drawn as he surveyed the town until he snapped back, the cheer sounding off-kilter like hers had done.

“You’re so right, let’s try again, you drive.” 

That was an alarm bell if she’d ever heard one. He never took her mockery of his driving skills lying down, and would never ever admit she was right. She smelled secrets all over it. 

“No, this is fun. You know me, I love a good ruin, and with our luck, we will miss the six sunsets you’ve promised me.”

He looked ready to protest for a second, but then she vaulted forward, gripping his hand and his mouth snapped shut again as he very faintly swayed in place. 

“Right.” 

He hauled her with him, taking off towards the cluster of buildings in the mouth of the valley further ahead. As the Doctor babbled – “Look, River! Mega flora honey suckle. Delicious in salads.” And “No, don’t go in there. There might still be some bat-hyenas around and they love hiding out in old kitchens.” - River took stock of the place.

Judging from the soot stained craters in the wooden beams and the scatter of the debris of the town, it hadn’t been a case of simple abandonment. But when was it ever? And the Doctor’s shoulders were still tense for all his prattling about. 

He was too purposeful in the way he was walking as well. Usually he was distracted so easily. That was the main reason why he always landed himself in trouble, but apart from the motor mouthing about the local flora and fauna, he was clearly moving with a target in mind.

By the time they had reached their destination at the valley entrance, all six suns had crawled so low on the horizon that the very air seemed to tremble with the coming sunsets. The wide cream flowers spiralling the stone columns next to her turned a delicate, pale peach by the change in light releasing a scent strong and sweet enough to make her feel vaguely drunk from it. 

In fact the entire valley was being painted a shimmering pink as the sky started to bleed into red and oranges of every shade.

“Let’s see, I think the elevator controls are right about here.”

The Doctor had taken a dive into the wilderness in the entrance hall, shuffling through the bushes and trees. It took him a little while, flopping about the bushes like an over eager toddler, but finally the power surged on and he came out of the bushes with leafs stuck in his hair.

The elevator groaned and trembled around them, but got them to the top floor, into what had once been a lush apartment – high vaulted ceiling, crystal chandelier and smooth wooden floors – still shining as River’s feet stirred up the dust. It vaguely resembled an art deco apartment from the 1920’s. 

And best of all, the apartment’s sliding doors opened up into a wide viewing deck of the valley.

“Oh.”

River had seen many gorgeous places over the years – the Doctor had taken her to quite a few of them – but she had never seen anything like the vista spread out before her now. The viewing deck overlooked a densely forrested river valley surrounded by mountains that were taking on an almost purplish sheen as the six suns of the planet came closer to disappearing behind the horizon. Brightly coloured birds were circling the trees and the glitter of the river, filling the air with a sound like nightingales.

“Like it?”

His entire body still seemed tense, but when she looked up at him, the sappy look from earlier was back in his eyes.

“It’s alright,” she countered, lips twitching

He grumbled under his breath about her use of sarcasm, but offered no other complaints than that, and climbed the railing with her. His long legs swung about as he explained the layout of the planet as the suns slowly disappeared and the distant stars began to appear. River wondered vaguely if he knew he was giving himself away, if it was intentional, or if he was simply being thoughtless.

It stumped her enough that she only half-heartedly took in her surroundings as she picked through the apartment after they went inside again. At least until she found an ancient record player and an LP of “Songs of Earth’s 20th century.”

“Human nostalgia never ceases to amaze,” he said, suddenly looking over her shoulder and for the second time that day she had to resist the reflex to hit him.   

“Well,” she remarked looking over the track list. “Bessie Smith should never go out of style.”

He hummed in agreement as she put it on and the croon of Bessie Smith’s sultry jazz vocals filled the room along with the grainy sound typical of old recordings.

“They’ve even kept the needle skips,” she remarked.

“Of course, you can hear Earth in that crackle.”

The Doctor moved away from her and settled on the bed. At any other time she would have taken it as an invitation, but the expression on his face was unreadable as he watched her sway to the music.

Finally River sighed, and as she adjusted the sound tube of the gramophone, she asked the question that had been burning a hole in her tongue most of the evening.

“You were here right before you picked me up, weren’t you?”

“Why do you say that?”

He looked even more secretive when she began walking towards him, but the it wasn’t the aggressive kind she had seen before – where he went all dark eyed and hard voiced when she tried to confront him – it was softer somehow, as if he couldn’t properly keep them locked in.

“You obviously know the place well, Doctor. You know the best viewing point, you knew how to trigger the emergency power.”

“And?”

“Were you here when the place fell?”

For a long moment he said nothing, simply glaring at her, but River refused to back down, staring right back at him. Until he finally gave up, grabbing a dusty toy – a wooden horse as far as she could tell – from the bed sheets beside him.

“I might have been.”

The visual of it was chilling. The ancient, ageless god sitting down amidst the ruins of someone else’s home – possibly of his own making. Despite all that she had learned about him since she had left Kovarian and the Silence behind, despite getting to know him, she couldn’t help but remember all the horror stories she had been told of him as a child.

“What happened?”

“They buggered up the terraforming and gave themselves winters lasting decades. After a century or so they gave up making it work and the colony descended into military conflict.”

“And you?”

“I tried to help them, I didn’t succeed.”

She had hardly ever seen him look so shamefaced before. He was so very good at disguising himself, and yet, now he had shown it to her twice in one day.

“So why did you bring me here?”

“I didn’t. I wanted us to see it when it was thriving.”

“You were going to interfere,” River deduced. “But she brought us here instead?”

 “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s a obstructive old bird,” River resisted the temptation to laugh at the sullenness in his voice, and kept her focus on the matter at hand, reaching out to stroke her fingers over his cheekbone.

“Because she wanted me to see your failures?”

He caught it in his own, River’s breath hitching as he pressed a kiss to her palm.

“I’m not a fairytale to get lost with, River,” he confessed to her hand. “But I’m not the monster from Kovarian’s stories either. At least not the kind she makes me out to be.”

“I never said you were,” she protested, but unable to hide the flinch on her face at the brutality in that statement.

“I’m so sorry about earlier, River. I should have asked before I did that, but I was…” the sudden change in subject – or was it the same subject and she was simply missing something? – derailed her completely, fingers jerking against his lips.

“You should have, but I should have made sure we did diaries first.”

“Don’t put this on yourself. I’ve known you longer – I have the duty of care here.”

"Doctor,” she began, but was interrupted when he suddenly let go of her hand, grabbing her hips instead and pulling her towards him so he could rest his head against her belly.

The flare of arousal was predictable, no one got her riled up like he did, but none the less unwelcome. River stroked her fingers through his hair to calm herself down. It didn’t help, rather it made his grip on her hips tighten, and she suppressed a whimper. His amorousness baffled her. Usually he seemed so uninterested in it, sex almost like an afterthought for him, but he had been so eager this time around.

“Doctor?” 

“I’ve missed you, River. Please,” the confession sounded like a dirty secret coming like that, but she didn’t resist when he pulled her down into his lap.

Very gently she reached out to run her fingers over his face, thumb brushing over his lips as her index finger traversed the barely there fuzz of his eyebrows. His breathing grew heavy under her touch, but rather than let it fill her with urgency as it usually did, she let it pass through her.  

The more she touched his face, the more she was able to see past it. Stare through the looking glas of those ancient hazel eyes to see the ugliness in him, but also the tenderness and kindness that he had for the universe and - she realised with a sharp, terrifying jolt - for her in particular.

When he tumbled them about, River didn’t protest, although she did half sit up, frowning when he scooted off the bed again.

“This usually works better with two people?” River said, suddenly desperate to put some levity back into the situation.

“True. I don’t need to be on the bed for it though” he said and then got to his knees, pulling her towards the edge of the bed and deliberately shouldered himself between her thighs. 

The Doctor had not tried to do this for her yet in the times they had spent together, at least not from her end of their timeline, but from the confidence in his movements he was no stranger to the act at all - freeing her of jodhpurs and knickers and opened her up on his tongue.

He seemed to know exactly how to lick into her, how to make the most of the heat of his soft mouth.

“Holy fucking shit,” with his tongue curling into her slick folds it sounded more like a prayer than a swear, although that still didn’t prevent him from pinching her hip in protest anyway. 

The thought of the Doctor having already done this over and over again to her future self, made her cry out, sending a fresh rush of wetness through her. She imagined herself laid out beneath him, kneeling above him, rocking back into the rub of his chin and press of his mouth. Her thighs were trembling despite her best efforts to relax, and when she looked down, the Doctor stared right back at her, hazel eyes dark and eager as if he could sense her thoughts.

It was the most beautifully obscene picture River had ever seen, and when he lowered his gaze again, sucking gently on her clit, River came apart with a breathless heave. He grabbed her hand as she did, stroking his fingers over her knuckles.

When she tugged the Doctor back onto the bed afterwards and began undressing him, he felt different. His limbs seemed so delicate under her fingers, like he was something newly de-shelled, soft and vulnerable. The rush of excitement of it made her so freshly wet he could no doubt feel it in the rub of her cunt against his thigh, but there was no demand in the caress of his warm hands. At least not yet. Instead he merely moaned when she bit at the soft, pale skin where his arm met shoulder before wandering to his nipples and teasing them into hard points against her fingers and her tongue.

After allowing her such liberties, River followed his lead eagerly as he urged her onto her front underneath him.

He was remarkably quiet and River listened to the rattle of the record player’s needle and Billie Holidays’s croon mixing with the Doctor’s harsh breaths against her neck as he shoved a couple of pillows under her hips.

The gesture was so filled with crude purpose that she couldn’t help but tense up, biting her lip against the pressure of his cock when he finally pushed inside.

As she arched back into him, only to immediately be pinned down, River suddenly had a flash of awareness of what had happened back in the TARDIS. In the dressing room, River had attributed his tempo and harshness for selfishness, but now it felt like passion as he fucked into her. She had always figured that making love was done slowly and with eye contact. It was a surprise to realise that making love and fucking wasn’t necessarily two different things.

But while his thrusts were hard and thorough, forcing the air out of her lungs in increasingly desperate moans, this time the nudge in her head was impossibly gentle. The Doctor stilled when she tensed up, voice hoarse against her neck.

“I’ll only see what you want to show me, honey, please, I’ll show you, just let me in.”

Every nerve in her body was screaming at her not to allow it. It went against every bit of training she had received in her life, against every logical self preservation instinct, but then, with every ounce of the willfullness that Kovarian had tried to beat out of her, River surrendered. 

Debasement was the thing furthest from her thoughts as his mind spilled into hers this time. It felt golden somehow, whoozy and intoxicating, and not entirely unlike that time she had been off of her head on acid at Woodstock.

As the Doctor breathed a soft chuckle against her neck, though, she changed her mind.

He kept his promise, just skimming the surface rush of River’s thoughts as she tried to get her bearings. Focusing on the pleasure zipping through her made his hips press forward, just a little, breath suddenly harsh against her hair,

Nothing like acid at all.

Though the eagerness in him softened immediately as she called forward her anger from earlier. Lips warm against her shoulder blade, River sensed the contrition that vibrated through the mind link, the sincerity behind it, washing over her like warm water.

She rewarded it with her own sincerity – how good he made her feel, how she wanted to fuck him until her legs gave out or the universe collapsed. Whichever occurred first. 

“River?” His fingers on her jaw turned her head round to face him, lips hot and insistent against her own. 

There were endless amounts of closed doors in his mind, but when his body surged into hers again, she sensed an echo of his pleasure in her mind, and the dual wet awareness of getting fucked and fucking filled her mind. 

The feeling of his want and affection washing over her was so overwhelming, she all but forgot to move. Struck dumb until he hoisted her hips up to run his fingers over her cunt where she was stretched open on his cock, making her rock back into his thrusts.

While River had not yet had any success in making him talk dirty out loud, in his head the Doctor apparently had no such inhibitions, telegraphing frankly shockingly filthy things through the mind link, making her moans turn into high pitched cries. But rather than easing off, the promise of climax seemed farther and farther away even as it grew.

“Doctor!”

Her voice was barely more than a whimper at this point, and clearly sensing her desperation, the Doctor rolled them over, settling under her even as he jumpstarted her movements by circling his thumb over her clit.

“I got you, honey. Just trust me,”

River’s thighs were trembling as she arched back in the search for the perfect angle, hips working hard over his, urged on by the bruising grip on her arse. Yet it was the plea for her trust that felt the most seductive of all. Dangerous even.

 _Yes._  

She wasn’t sure if she had spoken aloud, but the word resonated through both of them as she finally clenched down over him, coming so hard it almost hurt, but still clinging to him as he followed - hips snapping up and fingers biting into her skin with a groan that seemed to vibrate through her.

The Doctor chuckled weakly when she flopped forward, collapsing onto his chest, and rolled them over again. Pressing a soft kiss to her collarbone, he tried to move away, but River wouldn’t let him, letting out a soft noise of protest and tugged him back down. Tangling his legs with hers, the Doctor huffed and draped over her like a blanket, warm, flushed skin sticking to hers. 

“Did I wear you out?” 

Somehow he managed to sound smug and contrite all at one.

An unbidden, warm bubble of feeling swelled up inside her _\- I think love you, even all the ugly, vicious parts_ , but she swallowed the words back before he could see or hear them - before she herself could contemplate them too deeply.

"Well,” she began, voice feeling scratchy – how loud had she been? – “Need a bit of recovery time, never knew getting mind fucked could feel so good.”

“River!” he made a good pretence at outrage, but their minds were still loosely connected, and she could feel the heat of his delight at her sauciness.

Finally pulling away, physically as well as mentally, the Doctor flopped onto his back, dragging her into the crook of his arm with a soft touch of his lips to her temple.

“I think you should write the paper first. Scorch the earth around him. See if Professor Eustat still wants an apology after that.”

She tensed immediately under his hands, but he tugged her closer rather than let her worm away. “I can bring you on a space cruise to write it – I’ll promise not to get in the way too much – and then bring you back to time it with publication.” 

“How did you know?”

“I saw it earlier,” from the way he spoke, it was obvious he was talking TARDIS earlier, not what had just happened between them. 

“You shouldn’t have looked.”

“No, I shouldn’t have,” there was that thousand yard stare again as he glanced down at her, his free hand coming up to pet her hair. “And I won’t do it again.”

“Wouldn’t that also technically qualify as interfering in history?”

“Well only a little, since I already know that Luna won’t expel you.”

“Doctor!” she sat up, equal parts outraged and delighted by such a flagrant disregard for spoilers. “Such a hypocrite.”

He wasn’t even making an attempt to look guilty, which he probably would be hard pressed to do anyway in his current state. Naked, flushed and glorious - hair sticking up in jaunty little tufts from having her fingers running through them. With an impatient huff he pulled her down, kissing her so soundly, she couldn’t help but melt against him. Still exhausted from earlier, it didn’t fire her up, but made a soft heat wash through her, made her curl deeper into him, cling to his affection in a way she hadn’t ever done before.

“Indulge me this once, River.” He was so close she nearly went cross-eyed trying to hold the eye contact.

“I indulge you all the time, silly man.” 

“Not on this.” 

“I’m the one strict with the spoilers in the future, am I?”

“Frustratingly so.”

And somehow that felt more like a spoiler than anything else. To catch such a tangible glimpse of what kind of person she was going to be in the future.

“Shouldn’t you be returning the favour now then?”

“Undoubtedly, but I’m not as classy as you are. Never have been.”

”I dunno about that,” River quipped, trying to add some much needed levity to this newfound, alien intensity to their pairing. ”You were very much into cravats at one point, as far as I remember.”

“Bowties are much cooler,” he said with a disdainful sniff.

“Neither would be preferable.”

He didn’t bother with a proper answer, merely a noncommittal “hmm”, and turned his attention back on her body. The exploration wasn’t really sexual, like her he seemed sated for the moment. She had to swallow a giggle when cupped her breasts, as she had a sudden thought of him having some awkwardly silly name for them in his head.

But before she could grill him on it, the Doctor interrupted her.

”What is she singing?”

“Huh?”

He nodded towards the record player and River finally clocked on, listening to the warble of the classical singer on the track. 

”You know German,” she objected, but sighed as he pressed a kiss to her collarbone.

”Come on, Space Hair. You’ve always liked a bit of Goethe.”

Huffing a soft laughter, River joined her own raspy voice to the crystal clear diction of the singer. 

”Heaven's boundless arch I see, spread about above me. O what a distance dear, to one who loves me.” 

She didn’t comment on the sheen in his eyes, but merely reached up to brush her fingers over his long eyelashes before her voice faded off.

“None but the lonely heart can know…”

Her fingertips came away wet. 

“Doctor?”

”We should head out.”

He softened the rejection with a kiss on her neck, and River didn’t need to hear it, it was in the sharp inhale hidden in her curls. _Spoilers_.

By the time they’d both gotten up from the bed, he had pulled himself together again and even helped her buckle her gun belt, although he was frowning his disapproval the entire time. But as she adjusted his bowtie, the frown had given way to a fond little smile, his hands petting her bottom as she did.

It felt almost domestic. Ruins and time travel aside.

“So where did you have in mind to take me for my scholar’s retreat?”

“Somewhere without any distractions, give you time to work.”

“Everything can be a distraction to me.”

He grinned at that, beaming like a fool as he swept the curls back from her face.

“As few distractions as possible then.”

“Will you be there to distract me though?” River sidled even closer, slipping her arms around his waist and hoped she didn’t sound quite as hopeful as she was feeling.

“If you want me to.”

“Well, your bottom is delightful. I was hoping to see more of it.”

“I believe that can be arranged,” he said, cheeks going surprisingly and delightfully pink considering the filthy things he had just been doing to her.

Snatching up the last bit of her gear, River headed over towards the record player, which had gone into Edith Piaf by now, but the Doctor tugged her back to him.

“Hold your horses, sweetie. Just going to turn off the music. Not running away.”

“No need for that,” he said, slinging his arm around her shoulders and leading her from the apartment for the trek back to the TARDIS.

Edith Piaf’s warbling was still audible as the doors closed behind them, muffled, but still echoing through the empty halls as if there was a party going on in the abandoned ruins.

“Just because it’s ended, doesn’t mean it can’t have music,” the Doctor remarked in a puzzling turn of phrase, as she let herself hum along.

“How very Lynchian of you.”

“I was going for romantic.”

“Well, I suppose the two of them aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite as pleased with this as I was with the previous chapter. Young River's voice was a great deal more difficult to pin down, but I've been editing it for months, and this is where it landed. 
> 
> Anyways, the songs referenced in this chapter are as follows.
> 
> None But the Lonely Heart - Elisabeth Schwarzkopf  
> After You've Gone - Bessie Smith  
> La Vie En Rose - Edith Piaf  
> Body and Soul - Billie Holiday


End file.
